Tips for Making Accessible Content with Microsoft Office AccessGA and AMAC Accessibility

Agenda – Objectives: Share AccessGA resources with AMAC staff Get your feedback and suggestions – Topics: What makes a document accessible? – Document structure – Navigation – Alternative text – Reading order – Labels How to create accessible documents (Microsoft Word and Powerpoint): – Standards, Techniques, Best Practices – Accessibility Checker – Resources AccessGA WikiAccessGA Wiki

Why Create Accessible Documents Consider USERS with a variety of abilities and needs: Are blind or visually impaired Have difficulty holding a book or turning pages Have a learning disability Or have any other difficulty interacting with printed text Are deaf or hard of hearing and require multimedia to be captioned Demonstration with Accessible PDF and AT software

Background and Regulations ADA Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Department of Justice's revised ADA Title II and Title III regulations Electronic and information technology is required to be accessible for individuals with disabilities.

Standards and WCAG Guidelines 2.0 US Access Board World Wide Web Consortium 1.Content must be perceivable 2.Interface components in the content must be operable. 3.Content and controls must be understandable. 4.Content should be robust enough to work with current and future user agents (including assistive technologies)

Techniques Provide document structure by using appropriate headings (,, ). Screen readers rely on document markup language for navigation. Add appropriate alternative text descriptions to all meaningful images. Add appropriate alt text to charts and graphs, and tables. Provide logical reading order.

Techniques continued Provide sufficient color contrast between text and background colors. Do not use color as the sole means of communicating information such as required fields and error messages. Provide context for hyperlinks. Use fonts that are easy to read. Explain all acronyms.

Additional Considerations Ensure that document files posted on websites contain text and are not scanned images. (Copying a document on a photocopier to create a PDF attachment creates a scanned image.) Create accessible PDF documents from accessible word documents. Provide accurate metadata in document properties. Create document templates with accessibility features built in.

Microsoft Word & Accessibility Use Word Styles to create document structure Headings Paragraph Lists – Using Styles will ensure that document structure is retained when file is exported to other formats.

Think like a Designer Ditch direct formatting Design with Styles

More Considerations for Word Tables Columns Alternative text Meaningful hyperlinks Document properties / metadata Create accessible PDF from accessible Word doc

Microsoft Word Demonstration

Microsoft PowerPoint & Accessibility Templates Layout Reading order Outline view Export to PDF How PowerPoint differs How PowerPoint is the same

Accessible PowerPoint Demonstration

Use templates and titles Use built-in templates Use unique titles for slides – Go to Home Ribbon – Click on layout

Alt text Add alt text to images – Right-click the object – Select Format Picture… – Select the Alt Text option from the list – Add summary alt text in the description entry area.

Use Lists Styles Use bulleted lists Use numbered lists

Tables IDInstitutionMembership typeRenewed 24Georgia Institute of Technology UGAyes 77Georgia State Univ.UGAyes 82Georgia SouthernUGSyes To add a table with headings Go to menu item: Insert In the Tables section, select the Tables icon Select the number of rows and columns you would like your table to have Select the table and a Table Tools menu item should appear Go to menu item: Table Tools > Design In the Table Style Options section, select the Header Row check box Note: Whenever possible, keep tables simple with just 1 row of headings. Add alt text to Tables.

Set order for floating objects Go to menu item: Home In the Drawing section, select Arrange > Selection Pane… In the Selection and Visibility pane, all the elements on the slide are listed in reverse chronological order under Shapes on this Slide Elements can be re-ordered using the Re-order buttons located at the bottom of the Selection and Visibility pane Note: The tab order of elements begins at the bottom of the list and tabs upwards.

Format Text Use font sizes between 12 and 18 points for body text. Use fonts of normal weight, rather than bold or light weight fonts. Use standard fonts with clear spacing and easily recognized upper and lower case characters. Sans serif fonts (e.g., Arial, Verdana) may sometimes be easier to read than serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman, Garamond). Avoid large amounts of text set all in caps, italic or underlined. Use normal or expanded character spacing, rather than condensed spacing.

More best practices Text - Always place text on a plain or solid background, not over an image. Colors and contrast - text color should provide enough contrast with background color that people can easily read it. Layout - use a standard layout template with text placeholders. This will help with logical reading order.

Outline View

Acrobat PDFMaker

Save as Accessible PDF PDF Bookmarks PDF Tags

Tools for Life Advisory Council - Tools for Life AT Network - Carolyn Phillips Director of Tools for Life Ben Jacobs Accommodations Specialist Liz Persaud Training, Outreach and Development Coordinator Martha Rust AT Specialist Disclaimer This presentation is produced by Tools for Life which is a result of the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, as amended in It is a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Architecture, AMAC Accessibility Solutions and is funded by grant #H224C of the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), Department of Education. The contents of this presentation were developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, Georgia Tech, COA or AMAC and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal government. We are Here to Help You!